The Rascal (21 page)

Frowning, Grace lifted the stereoscope. “Oh, it’s Boston! I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s lovely.”

Jack grabbed his coat and hers from the storeroom peg, then carried both across the dimness. For some time he stood beside her, his shoulders broad and rigid beneath his shirt, holding her heavy wool and scarf at the ready. She glanced at him, recognizing impatience in the set of his mouth.

“Very well. I’m finished.” Reluctantly, Grace put away the viewing device. She shrugged into her coat and wrapped her scarf tightly. “Will you escort me back to the
Press?
”

“I’m late already,” Jack said, his face stony. “I’m sorry.”

For the first time in weeks, they parted on the steps of Jedediah Hofer’s mercantile and went their separate ways.

Grinning at the raucous music from the saloon piano, Jack slid a whiskey across the bar in a practiced arc. It came to a stop in front of the folded arms and slumped shoulders of a stranger who looked vaguely familiar. His youthful face was smudged with weariness, his whole demeanor downtrodden.

Probably a drummer, Jack decided, to judge by the citified but shabby clothes on him. Or a down-on-his-luck miner, chased from his claim by the weather. Lately, warm winds had blown down the mountains outside Morrow Creek, turning all the surrounding countryside to an enormous soup of mud and snowmelt, fooling the oak trees into believing spring was near. Their branches sported buds far too early, ready to unfurl, not knowing they’d only been lulled by the fickleness of nature.

“Much obliged,” the stranger mumbled. He closed his eyes, quaffed back all his whiskey, then shuddered. “One more, sir.”

Shaking his head, Jack served up another Old Orchard. He didn’t linger though, not wanting to be too accessible. A man like that was bound and determined to drink himself to a stupor. Jack would rather allow the poor lunk time to sober a bit.

“He’ll clean out his pockets at that rate,” Marcus observed. Sympathetically, he frowned at the stranger. “It’s not natural to spend that much money with your eyes closed.”

Beside him, Daniel chuckled. “That’s female trouble right there.” He aimed his chin toward the stranger, then finished a quantity of his own lager. He exhaled with pleasure. “Not that I’ve ever had any female trouble myself, mind you.”

“Course not.” Gratified by his friends’ company, Jack spread his arms along his glossy bar. It felt uniquely good to be there, ensconced behind the workings of his own business again. It had taken him a long while to build up his saloon. He was proud of it. “Only for some reason, I can’t get any more dance-hall ladies in here,” he complained good-naturedly, aiming a deadeye glance at the blacksmith. “Whenever I ask, they all say they’re not coming within two feet of that scoundrelly Daniel McCabe. Or some such.”

Daniel choked on his lager. His brows lowered. “Don’t say any of that twaddle when Sarah’s nearby. She’s tetchy about my ‘amorous’ past already. She’ll take a frying pan to my skull.”

“Ha. Nothing like a reformed bachelor to keep us all in line.” Marcus spared a second pitying glance for the stranger, then regarded his friends with sure wisdom. “There but for the grace of God we all go.” He sighed. “I’m just hopeful that Molly’s new mania for orderliness is temporary—because of the baby coming and all. Yesterday she made me go back to the mill six times for ‘prettier’ boards to make the cradle with! I can’t think what’s next.”

“Ah.” Jack nodded, selecting a cloth to clean glasses with. “That explains why you’re here, Copeland, spending money you usually hoard. Buying sarsaparilla.”

Daniel made a face. “Prissy drink.”

“You’re afraid to go home,” Jack concluded.

“The hell I am!” Marcus protested, looking aggrieved. “I only came by because Molly wants to know why Murphy here—” he nodded at Jack, making sure Daniel was paying attention “—hasn’t been spooning with Grace anymore. That’s all.”

This time it was Jack’s turn to blanch. His hand stilled on the glass he was wiping. He remembered that stereoscopic image of Boston, its familiar sights looking real enough to touch…real enough to reach all the way to the territory and wreck his second chance at things. It hadn’t been Grace’s fault, but he hadn’t wanted to face her inevitable questions either.

Daniel perked up. He slapped on an inquiring expression, which looked damned foolish on his huge, masculine face.

“Tell us, Jack. Why haven’t you been spooning with Grace?”

“Shut up, the both of you. I’m working.”

To prove it, Jack gazed over the bar, making sure his rowdy evening business was still underway. No one appeared to need anything, but the place wasn’t as crowded as he would have liked either.

He suffered the aftereffects of Grace’s troublemaking visits even now, he noted with a hitch to his breath. Customers chose to drink elsewhere rather than risk a run-in with the most rabble-rousing suffragette of Morrow Creek.

But across the saloon, a few brave patrons huddled around the Faro table, hooting over a wager that was underway. And two cowboys drank near the window, so there was hope for a turnaround still. Harry played the piano, indulging a table of merchants with his until-now undiscovered skill at bawdy ballads and rousing polkas.

“What happens with me and Grace,” Jack informed Marcus and Daniel in even tones, returning to the more important matter at hand, “is none of your damned business.”

His friends pretended astonishment.

“It’s not?” they asked each other. They guffawed.

“Drink up or get out. I’ve got paying customers to serve.”

“We pay!” Marcus objected. He probably knew exactly how much he paid, down to the last penny. He’d become a little less tight since his marriage to Molly, but he would never be altogether loose with his coin. “Give me another sarsaparilla.”

“Another lager, too,” Daniel added.

The stranger down the bar raised his head. “A whiskey!”

Jack served up all the drinks, affecting gruffness. At least his knack for sliding a glass down the slick bar hadn’t deserted him. He’d been away from his saloon too often these past weeks…although he couldn’t strictly say he regretted it.

With every inch of him, he didn’t.

Which was worrisome in the extreme. He hadn’t even found Grace a husband for all his trouble.

Daniel tasted his lager, smacking foam from his lips. “Grace is a good woman.” He slapped his hand on the bar, typically unreserved. “You’re a good man, Murphy. But I’m here to tell you, if you’re just diddling with my sister-in-law—”

“You’ll have us to answer to,” Marcus vowed.

Jack stared at them in disbelief. They only gazed back. Belligerently. “Oh, hell,” he complained. “You’re serious?”

They nodded, Marcus going so far as narrowing his eyes.

“You can’t shake loose from a Crabtree woman,” he opined after taking another swig of sarsaparilla. “So don’t even try.”

Daniel agreed. “We’ve already stood in your shoes, Murphy. Just go along peacefully, and you’ll be fine.”

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You two are threatening me? Damnation. What happened to loyalty?”

“Loyalty,” Daniel said, “can’t keep a man warm at night.”

“You’ll need us later,” Marcus added. “Believe me.”

But before Jack could answer that befuddling claim, the piano music stopped. Harry nudged his chin toward the door.

“Looks like somebody’s here to see you, Murphy.”

Grace
. She was all Jack could think of.

First she’d sent her damned turncoat cronies—Marcus and Daniel—to drink his liquor and lecture him on loyalty and women and long nights needing warming up, he figured. Now she’d come herself, ready to take advantage of his weakened state.

Jack might have known she wouldn’t hang on to his “appointment” excuse for long. It had been all he could think of with that stereoscopic image of Boston in his head.

“Barkeep!” The stranger raised his scrawny arm. “One more whiskey!” Then he slumped in a snoring pile on the bar.

“Boss!” Harry yelled. “Look there!”

“Well, Murphy?” Daniel demanded amid the ruckus. He aimed a serious look at Jack. “What will it be?”

“What do you say?” Marcus pressed on. “About Grace?”

Hell
. This night was too much on him.

“It’s none of your damned business,” Jack said.

Then, throwing down his towel, he left Harry in charge and went outside to meet his fate. There was no coming up with a way this night could possibly get any worse.

E
xcept it did.

Jack stepped outdoors, not bothering with his coat and hat, and found himself confronted not with Grace Crabtree demanding answers about Boston and their current lack of “spooning,” but with Jedediah Hofer, the mercantile owner. The big Swede stood bundled outside the saloon, his delivery wagon waiting on its runners at the hitching post. His team of bays snorted and blew, their hooves and harnesses loud in the deepening twilight.

Beyond him, people went about their business, riding past through the slush. Two men talked outside the news depot across the street, one of them carrying a copy of the
Pioneer
Press
. Two ladies waved to Jack politely, then entered the milliner’s.

“Evening, Hofer.” Jack offered a handshake, surprised to see the man so late in the day. “That my delivery?”

“Yessir. It’s all there, crated and ready. Just like you ordered.” Hofer shuffled, looking unhappy. “I wasn’t going to bring it over at all, only you said you might pay some more on your account this time.”

Damnation. Too late, Jack remembered he no longer had the ready payment Hofer spoke of. He’d sent the money to Nealie and Corinne to pay for emergency railroad tickets when his sisters had missed their connection and wired him for help. For Jack, family came first. Business obligations followed close behind.

“I have been paying on my account.” That much was true, however much he still owed. “It’s wintertime. Business is slow.”

The mercantile owner made a noncommittal sound.

Hell. This would be harder than he’d thought. “Once I get the Excelsior Performing Troupe in my place,” Jack promised with a genial lilt to his brogue, “I’ll have the money to pay in full. Plus extra orders to boot.”

Unmoved by Jack’s Irish conviviality, Hofer squinted inside the saloon. “I still see men drinking. You still need whiskey.”

A nod. “And you’ve still got my standing order in your wagon, too. I’ll take it round back at the alley, as usual.”

“No, sir. Can’t do that.”

Jack lowered his brows, inwardly cursing the ongoing problem of Grace and her do-gooders scaring men away from his saloon. Her shenanigans had bruised his finances for certain. More to his discomfiture, he couldn’t seem to get her safely married either. But in the meantime…

“Course you can, Hofer. Let’s go. I’ll help you unload.”

Hofer removed his hat. In the lamplight from the saloon window, he looked twice as fretful. He shook his head.

“You’ve been a good customer, Murphy, ever since you came to the territory. We both know it. I’d like to keep supplying you. But buying all this on account—” Hofer gestured helplessly toward the piled crates waiting in his wagon bed. “I’m a businessman! You can’t expect me to oblige you forever.”

Fortunately, that was exactly what the mercantile owner had
done until now. For that show of faith, Jack felt beyond grateful. But he wasn’t a man who took advantage—or who viewed his obligations lightly. He met Hofer’s worried gaze head-on.

“My credit is good,” Jack assured him. “I found a way to pay last year, didn’t I?”

Grudgingly, Hofer nodded.

“The farmers drink on trade this time of year, you know that. They won’t have coin till spring. I can’t very well deny them a snort of Old Orchard to keep them warm, especially when they’re townsfolk. I could pay you in full now if you’d take preserved peaches or eggs by the basket—”

Hofer frowned. “I’ve got accounts, too. They pester me for payment! Eggs would be fine by me, but I need more to—”

Mystifyingly, he broke off. With a sudden broad smile, Hofer gestured toward the boardwalk. He’d clearly forgotten Jack altogether in his haste to welcome someone.

“Miss Crabtree,” Hofer called. “This is a pleasure!”

Jack stiffened. Having Grace witness this entanglement was the last thing he needed. On the verge of offering Hofer a partial payment, something to tide him over awhile longer, Jack held his ground instead.

“Hello, Mr. Hofer.” Grace strode to meet the merchant, holding a satchel in one hand and what looked to be a pair of letters in the other. “What brings you out this evening?”

“Well—” Hofer glanced from Grace to Jack, then back again. A curious expression crossed his face. “Just a delivery.”

“I see. I came to share some important news with Mr. Murphy,” she confided. Her eyes widened when she glimpsed him in the shadows. “But that can certainly wait till you’re finished with your business. Do go on, won’t you?”

Jack frowned. He didn’t want his dealings to become public, especially when it came to Grace. He tried to telegraph as
much to Hofer with a vociferous grunt. But the man merely gazed as though bedazzled by Grace’s presence…and she, for her part, simply smiled at them both in an encouraging fashion.

“Please,” she coaxed. “Do proceed as you were. Don’t pay me any mind at all.”

“Well, er…” Hofer turned his hat in his hands, clearly caught in a dilemma of some kind. “The fact of the matter is—”

There was nothing for it. Jack stepped up. “We can do this another time, Hofer,” he said roughly. “Thanks kindly, but I’ll wait for my delivery when terms are settled between us.”

To his surprise, Hofer shook his head. “No, I deliver to you right now. I just decided this moment. Six crates on account, with money off for delivering them so late today.”

Flabbergasted, Jack stared at him.

Grace had no such reservations. “Why, that sounds excellent, Mr. Hofer!” She beamed. “You’re very generous.”

The man all but blushed. “I’ll just get started,
ja?
”

Jack decided he was in no position to argue his good fortune, no matter how inexplicable. While Grace watched with evident satisfaction, he helped Hofer unload the packed crates.

Whiskey and mescal bottles clinked against one another, their crates bearing Spanish names of Mexican towns Jack had never seen. Hofer labored red-faced and stammering beside Jack, stealing frequent glances at Grace all the while. He lingered on the stoop with the final box to inquire after her health and the letters she held.

He nodded toward them. “Good news,
ja?
”

“Yes, very good news!” She bounced on tiptoes, fairly crackling with suppressed excitement. “Very exciting, too.”

Jack puzzled over that, but only for a minute. Right now he had more pressing concerns to deal with. He stepped nearer to Hofer so they could speak privately.

“Thank you, Hofer,” he said, grateful for the man’s change of heart. “I’ll be around your place later to settle up.”

Hofer regarded him with a nod. “Don’t wait too long.”

Jack agreed. For a moment, Hofer squinted at the crates of liquor as though wondering how they’d traversed from his wagon to Jack’s saloon. Then the mercantile owner shook his head.

“Evening, Murphy. Miss Crabtree.”

Grace bade him goodbye with a wave of her letters.

The mercantile owner plunked his hat on his head, then climbed into position on his delivery wagon. With an unaccountably fond parting glance at Grace, he drove away.

Jack dragged in a deep breath, relieved to have things settled for now. A quick glimpse inside told him Harry had things in order behind the bar. Marcus and Daniel rolled dice, their drinks at their elbows. The stranger slumped, probably still snoring. Someone had put a bucket on his head—his patrons’ idea of a joke.

A breeze stirred the fragrance of castile soap and starch surrounding Grace, reminding Jack she still waited for him.

Ordinarily, the sight of her would have put him in fine spirits. But tonight…tonight, the way things were going, he reasoned her visit could only bode ill.

“All right.” He faced her. “What’s next?”

“Well.” Grace felt her smile widen now that she held Jack’s full attention at last. “I’m afraid I was frightfully rude to poor Mr. Hofer just then, being so reticent about my letters and all, but I wanted you to be the first to know my exiting news.”

She touched his arm, her whole heart filled to overflowing. It was wonderful to feel this way, eager to share her happenings with someone other than her family.

But Jack only waited, his face partly in shadow. Behind him, the saloon carried on in all its boisterousness, doubtless earning him bundles of profits. Everything seemed taken care of in his absence, at least for the moment, so Grace forged onward.

“I wasn’t coming inside this time,” she assured him with a nod toward the noisy saloon. “Nor intruding at all. I promise I wasn’t. But this simply couldn’t wait until morning, so—”

At Jack’s continued silence, Grace hesitated. She’d never seen him appear quite so…burdened before. Not even when he’d set aside the stereoscope the other day. Although his outlook would undoubtedly improve with the news she brought.

“I’ll just come to the point, shall I?” Deciding to delay her own thrilling news for the moment, Grace chose one of the letters from her hand. “Perhaps this will make you smile.”

Jack took the mail by rote, his face impassive.

“Look at the return address,” she urged, crowding closer to peer past his shoulder and burly arm. “The Excelsior Performing Troupe in Chicago. Isn’t that the one you’ve contacted?”

Jack turned over the letter, his fingers blunt-tipped and shadowed by the lamplight behind him.

“Our mail got mixed up together,” Grace explained, gazing at his profile. “When I was fetching both. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get it to you, but I’ve been preoccupied.”

She smiled, knowing she’d been preoccupied with Jack and all the enjoyable things they’d done together.

“Go ahead,” she prodded. “Open it!”

Jack did. Grace watched him eagerly, recalling the times they’d talked about the troupe. Jack had been reluctant to disclose many details, but she knew some such companies included musicians and performers and renowned stage actors. Jack’s interest in hiring the troupe was further proof, Grace reasoned, that her improving influence had taken hold at last.
He had broadened his ambitions, dared to invite the arts and culture to his saloon for the betterment of all Morrow Creek.

“Well?” She nudged him, helpless to hold back a smile. “Will you be bringing some culture to Morrow Creek at last?”

His gaze slid to hers. Held. “You could say that.”

“Excellent!” Grace beamed. “I told you taking an interest in ‘highbrow pursuits’ would be good for you. Didn’t I?”

Typically, Jack only grunted.

He gazed inside his saloon. In a lesser man, his peculiar expression might have been ascribed to worry. But Jack, Grace knew, was far too confident for ordinary troubles to touch him. Weren’t their lively weeks together evidence of that? She’d never had a finer time in her life—not even while bicycling.

“You’ll have plenty of time to prepare for the troupe’s arrival, too, because I’ll be busy with a project of my own.” She withdrew her second letter and fluttered it toward him. “Look!”

Jack shoved his letter in his trouser pocket. With what seemed to be a considerable effort, he smiled. “What is it?”

“Heddy Neibermayer!” Grace shouted, wholly unable to contain her glee. Several heads turned from inside the saloon, but she didn’t care a whit. “She’s coming to Morrow Creek! In a few weeks at least. And my chapter of the Social Equality Sisterhood will be hosting her! Isn’t that magnificent?”

Astonishingly, Jack didn’t grasp the wondrous implications of her news right away. He lowered his shoulders. “Heddy who?”

“Neibermayer. You must have heard of her.
Women and
Suffrage
is her most famous work, but far from her only accomplishment.” Awestruck, Grace admired the elegant penmanship and fine paper in Jack’s hand, both of them worthy
of framing. She could scarcely believe Heddy Neibermayer had answered her letters at last. “She’s my idol, Jack. A speaker, an author and an activist of the highest caliber.”

“This paragon of accomplishment,” Jack began, earning an even wider smile for his use of vocabulary. “She’s coming here?”

“She and all her retinue!” Grace enthused, squeezing his arm with delight. “They’ve agreed to a speaking engagement as a part of their westward touring commitments. You wouldn’t believe the accomplished women who travel with Heddy Neibermayer, Jack. Reformers and protesters and artists—and the usual hangers-on, of course, but that’s to be expected. Everyone wants to bask in the company of greatness.”

Jack’s eyebrow quirked. “Greatness?”

“Yes! And the accompanying merchandise fair, too, of course. I’ve been trying to convince Heddy Neibermayer to visit Morrow Creek for ages.” Hastily, Grace sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve written every month for years, keeping Heddy informed about all my activities and everything my various clubs and ladies’ organizations have accomplished. I knew that eventually she would realize Morrow Creek is worthy of a visit.”

“Indeed it is,” Jack agreed, a hint of irony in his brogue. “I would offer them all a place to stay, if I had the boardinghouse rooms I wanted.”

He nodded upstairs, where lamplight still blazed from her meeting rooms. For an instant, Grace hesitated. This wasn’t the time for their old disagreement to reappear. And yet…